Is your website design up to scratch?

A website is a very important aspect of any business. As a business owner, you must ask yourself whether your current website design is working for you – whether it draws in visitors and whether they convert into customers. An improperly designed website will let you down and more importantly, make you lose business as a result.

According to Adobe, a whopping 39% of visitors will leave a website if it takes too long to load. Furthermore, 38% will leave if they find a websites layout to be unattractive. It’s a hard enough task just getting visitors to a website, so it only makes sense that you’d want your website to ‘tick all the boxes’ when it comes to the best practices for design and usability.

As a professional website designer, I will share with you some design tips that your website should feature. These tips will keep your website design up to scratch and will ensure that you do not lose business.

1. Design simplicity

Is your website navigation overly complicated? If it is, you need to reconsider your website design. Your website always needs to be easy to use and easy to identify with. Navigational menus must be kept to a minimum so that you don’t overwhelm your users. When start a new website design for clients, I make sure to keep it simple. I use a simple navigation based framework, offering users knowledge of which section of the site they are on, how to navigate back to the home page and directions to reach other parts of the site. Keep in mind that the simpler you make your website for your users; the more likely they are to interact with it.

2. Contact information

No website is complete without contact information. If your current websites design fails to present your contact information clearly on every page, you need to change it ASAP. I personally find the best place to add contact information is in the header or footer of the design. I always include a contact form on the contact page which allows visitors to send an email directly through the website. Keep in mind that your contact information must be highly visible and it should include a phone number, a physical address and a mailing address to contact you. This brings about a touch of genuineness and legitimacy to your website.

3. Call to action

The purpose of a business website is to encourage some form of action from the visitor, whether it is making a sale or gathering information. To ensure that your website design serves this purpose, you must make a strong call to action prompt. I firmly believe in making calls to action highly obvious. I place prompts in visible parts of webpages, next to items that they relate to. I also make use of contrasting colour schemes to say out loud what users are expected to do. Depending on particular websites, I generally include 2 – 3 calls to action above the fold in order to direct users to various stages of the buying cycle. Proper website design can help users land on the buttons you want them to.

4. Fast loading

Various studies have revealed that once a visitor lands on your website, you only have three seconds to grab their attention. This is why you should always ensure that your website design loads fast. Not only does a fast loading website encourage visitors to start navigating through it sooner, but it also gives them more time to find what they are looking for.

5. Mobile responsive

Given the rise of mobiles, responsive design has become the new norm for every website design. In fact, last year’s updates to Google’s algorithm even penalises websites that are not mobile friendly. If your website is not mobile responsive, you are certainly missing out on a lot of business. Here, at Ignition Media, every website that I build is mobile responsive, using the Foundation Framework. Not only does this help users view the websites that I design on all devices, but it also ensures that each website is ranked better on search engines.

Conclusion:

As a business owner, you must ensure that your website design is always up to scratch. Make sure that the design is simple and always provide your contact information clearly. Also, remember to add prompts for calls to action. Your website design needs to be mobile responsive and should load quickly as well. If you follow the basics, your website is sure to land you more business opportunities.

At Ignition Media, we specialise in website design services. With over 16 years of experience in the web design industry, I certainly know what it takes to build great websites and this is what you get when you choose to work with me. I will build you a high quality, responsive website which will bring you better business!

To know more about our services, please don’t hesitate to give us a call. We’ll be glad to help you.

About Nicole Brooke

Nicole is owner and SEO of Ignition Media. She has been an SEO for 15 years and has a wealth of knowledge when it comes to SEO, content marketing and Social Media exposure. Follow me on Google+
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